Black Wednesday
Well, yesterday was crazy. People I know lost their jobs or are now in danger of doing so. Some author friends lost their imprints. It’s all scary stuff. But publishing is not the only industry in convulsions. We’re in a recession. It’s bad all over.
To answer those asking if I still stand by Tuesday’s comments. I do. Things are bad, but they’re less bad for children’s than for adults’. Publishing is going to change a lot over the next decade.
But here’s my main source of comfort: People are always going to want stories.
My sympathies to everyone who had a really bad day yesterday.
Posted by Justine at 11:26, 4 December 2008 under New York City/USA, Publishing business, State of the World | 4 Comments »
Comments
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
-
[...] Insiders left standing soldier on. [...]
Pingback from requiem « books in the works on 2 January, 2009 at 12:55 am
Pingback from requiem « books in the works on 2 January, 2009 at 12:55 am
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a Reply
Spam filters ate your comment? Let me know and I will rescue it.

- A Dress A Day
- Amateur Gourmet
- Eat Drink One Woman
- Eric Asimov
- Fashion Tribes
- Go Fug Yourself
- Manolo’s Shoe blog
- Megnut
- Miss Meghan
- On the runway
- Shoewama
- Shophound
- Showstudio
- Tehinterweb
- The Strong Buzz
- the food section
- Alien Onion
- Anonymous Lefty
- Articulate
- Damselfly
- Inside a dog
- Lili Wilkinson
- Margo Lanagan
- Matilda
- Nadstown
- Oh Errol
- Possums Pollytics
- Rjurik Davidson
- Sarsaparilla
- Semi Naked Truth
- Stack
- Talking Squid
- Tessa
- Watchdog of the Wankers
- Westerblog
- jonathan strahan
- petey sefton
- yoof literature
- ASIF!
- About Last Night
- Angry Black Woman
- Asking the Wrong Questions
- Baghdad Burning
- Carl Brandon Society Blog
- Chicken Spaghetti
- Critical Mass
- Edge of the West
- Emdashes
- Endicott Studio blog
- Freakonomics
- Jennifer Weiner
- LJ Folk
- Meg Cabot
- Pub Rants
- Sarah Weinman
- Smart Bitches
- The Longstockings
- Unshelved
- Vertical Books
- Women in comics
- Worth the Trip
- Writers Beware
- YA Authors Cafe
- YALSA
- Yellow Peril
- boingboing
- bookslut
- making light
- moorish girl
- mumpsimus
- nineseveneight
- normblog
- overheard in NYC
- whatever
- Alice Taylor
- Ben Rosenbaum
- Bennett Madison
- Charlie Stross
- Chris McLaren
- Christopher Barzak
- Christopher Rowe
- Claire Light
- David Moles
- Diana’s Diversions
- E. Lockhart
- Emily Pohl-Weary
- Gregory Frost
- Gwenda Bond
- Hal Duncan
- Jaclyn Moriarty
- Katie King
- Kristin Livdahl
- Lauren McLaughlin
- Margo Rabb
- Marrije
- Maureen Johnson
- Maureen McHugh
- Nathaniel Stern
- Scott Westerfeld
- Sheree Thomas
- Sillybean
- Walter Jon Williams
- Ysabeau Wilce
- jenny davidson
- lauren cerand
- maud newton
- nalo hopkinson
- pseudopodium
- rebecca skloot
- tingle alley
L'Fashion, L'Food
Oz
Regular Curiosities
Rest of the World
Sport
- "Bombs, brainwashing and supernovae" @robinwasserman? Sounds awesome. And all of those could be *on* a train. # 13 hours ago
- Er that last was meant for @robinwasserman. # 13 hours ago
- Have you got a plot yet? Is your hand still up? I'm on the acela 2 Philly. In the quiet car. Your plot shld involve trains. # 13 hours ago
Recent Comments
- AliceB on NaNo Tip No. 20: Don’t Wait for the Muse to Strike
- Samwell on NaNo Tip No. 20: Don’t Wait for the Muse to Strike
- wandering-dreamer on NaNo Tip No. 20: Don’t Wait for the Muse to Strike
- Ellen on NaNo Tip No. 20: Don’t Wait for the Muse to Strike
- Cyndy Otty on NaNo Tip No. 20: Don’t Wait for the Muse to Strike
- Stephanie on NaNo Tip No. 20: Don’t Wait for the Muse to Strike
- angharad on Blank Page Heroine
- Sally on Liar Question
- Summer on FAQ
- Summer on Liar Question
- Summer on Liar Spoiler Thread (updated)
- moonspinner on Blank Page Heroine
- Philip on NaNo Tip No. 18: Breaking with Stereotypes
- imelda on NaNo Tip No. 18: Breaking with Stereotypes
- Kethry on NaNo Tip No. 14: Procrastination can be Your Friend
Recent Posts
- NaNo Tip No. 20: Don’t Wait for the Muse to Strike
- Liar Question
- NaNo Tip No. 18: Breaking with Stereotypes
- Blank Page Heroine
- NaNo Tip No. 16: Edit as You Go
- Signed Books in the USA
- NaNo Tip No. 14: Procrastination can be Your Friend
- Ebooks of My Novels
- NaNo Tip No. 12: Turn the Internet off
- Last Night’s Event
- NaNo Tip No. 10: Don’t Skip the Tricky Bits
- On Tips + OTP
- NaNo Tip No. 8: Square Brackets
- Girlfight
- NaNo Tip no. 6: Emergency Unstucking Techniques
Best of Blog
- Liar Spoiler Thread (updated)
- January is writing advice month (sticky post) Updated
- Types of crazy writers
- How to rewrite
- Getting paid, or, don’t quit your day job
- How to write a novel*
- A Writer’s Job (Updated)
- Too Young to Publish
- Average First Novel Advances
- A Beginner’s Guide to Cricket
- Being Dumped is Much Much Worse
Categories
- 1930s NYC novel
- Admin
- Basketball
- Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction
- Best of Blog
- Bloggery
- Book challenges
- Book tour
- Cons & Other Gatherings
- Cricket
- Daughters of Earth
- Excuses
- Fans & readers
- Fashion
- Feminism
- First Kiss
- Food
- Frippery
- How To Ditch Your Fairy
- Ideas
- Last Day of the Year
- Liar
- Liquids
- Listening
- Love is Hell
- Magic or Madness trilogy
- Manga
- Mangosteens
- Musings
- New York City/USA
- Praising
- Publishing business
- Ranting
- Reading
- Research
- Science
- Scott's books
- Search Terms
- Sport
- State of the World
- Sydney/Australia
- Titles & names
- Toilets
- Tour de France
- Travelling
- Unicorns
- Vainglory
- Viewing
- What's your fairy?
- Whingeing
- Words & Language
- Writing goals & milestones
- Writing life
- Writing process
- Young Adult literature
- Zombies


Electric Landlady Says:
It’s very upsetting and my sympathies go out to everyone involved. I did have to giggle a bit at this line (from your second link), though:
“Mr. Mehta’s empire will expand to include the Doubleday and Nan A. Talese imprints, merging authors like Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Lethem with Knopf’s writers, like John Updike and Toni Morrison.”
Margaret Morrison? Jonathan Updikem?
December 4th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Rebecca Says:
This is just scary.
December 4th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
caitlin Says:
This is scary. Where’s the bailout for the publishing industry? I don’t drive, but I inhale books. Very sad especially since I am a bookseller.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:52 pm